Abstract
DC and RF discharge have been widely used for the generation of CO2 lasers. The microwave discharge excitation method has the following advantages for CO2 lasers1,2: First, having a low supply voltage magnetron as the microwave oscillator tends to make the laser system compact and safe. Second, discharge without electrodes in the laser tube can bring about high purity of laser gas and less degradation of optics. However, there have been few practical high-power microwave excited CO2 lasers because it is difficult to make one with a uniform discharge. In this work, we have realized homogeneous microwave discharge by employing orthogonally crossing electric fields and have achieved high micro- wave-to-optical efficiency, comparable to that of the DC discharge type.
© 1996 Optical Society of America
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